A tickler, in particular.

Get someone Scottish to say the above phrase to you. In fact, if possible, get someone from Partick to say it: it would then be a Partick tickler in particular.

Then, give them some Curly Wurly Squirlies.

New goodies in my shop!

Throughout the horrible wet summer (and current horrible wet autumn) I've been dabbling with making earrings and some other stuff, and I decided this morning that the time has come to put some of it up for sale.

I've started with earrings - and why not. They are my favourite thing to make - it's where I started and I keep coming back to it.

Enjoy!

Trying the 365 - starting with Penrith Museum

Penrith Museum ... 1/365
Originally uploaded by pebblesfromheaven

We attended a flint knapping workshop on Sunday - it was fascinating but we'd no chance of making it look as easy as the tutor.

His bench and basket set-up looked (intentionally) as if from another time - so I had another little play with the sepia setting on my camera.

When I reviewed the photos after I got home, I decided this one looked like one that Flickerites might put in their diary or 365 set (ie one photo per day for a year). So, I started my own 365 set. I fully expect it to be like all my diaries throughout my life - I start well and quickly grow bored, but every now & then return for a prolonged burst ... time will tell.

Mooooooo Cards

Sepia Bead #1
Originally uploaded by pebblesfromheaven

I've just ordered some Moo cards.

Took some arty farty shots to put on them...

Seasons, Skylines and Stone Circles

We spent an interesting day at Tullie House on Saturday, taking part in what was billed as a "day-school" but was essentially a series on lectures on a subject we love. The title "Much more than Stone Axes" was obviously dreamt up by someone who thought we wouldn't want to know about axes (we did, really) so we were sad to hear the stone axe man had cancelled.

Firstly, Aaron Watson gave an animated talk about stone circles - what they are (they're not all the same!) and why they might be where they are. The most interesting bit for me was where he showed a series of images taken as he climbed a Lakeland fell, and as he became more elevated the distant Mull of Galloway seemed to rise up out of the Solway. This we know now is as a result of the perspective changing to account for the curvature of the Earth; but what must prehistoric people made of it? Did they think that mountains had special powers because they called up entire other mountains out of the sea? And what about the fact that it can be sunny and warm down at low levels but as you climb upwards, the air gets colder and there even might be snow on the peaks? Did they think they were travelling through seasons, through time?

Next there was a lecture by Kate Sharp about prehistoric rock art, a subject we are very familiar with and even so because some of B's images were to be used in the presentation! There were a few sites I hadn't seen before though, and I'd like to check out, especially one reused as a gatepost which looked great. B had to stand up and take a bow for his photos ...

The lunch came next; carrot soup and plates of sarnies, too many sarnies and no cake! shocking. I had to go buy a brownie.

B placed some of his business cards on the top table and they all went almost immediately - each a little artwork all of its own. Some people must have been collecting the set...

The talk after lunch was about fieldwalking in the Eden Valley. This was fabulously interesting to me and made me amazed to think this had been going on so near to us and we didn't know. They had found loads of flinty tools and arrowheads; just imagine being the person to find those - we might do some next year, it sounds amazing.

Finally, the last lecture was about the Brampton Lunula, an item we'd seen pictures of before in a previous talk about Prehistoric Bling! It was a gold fragment first thought to be a gold spoon but soon identified as a lunula, the true purpose of which is unknown but it's shaped like a necklace so is often portrayed as such.

So afterwards some delegates took advantage of the offer of free entry into the museum - something we are already entitles to as locals, so we headed home, our minds buzzing.

FRED 2008 - Cumbrian Art Invasion

Well it's a sad thing to say, but our experience of FRED2008 has not been a good one, but I'll try to review what little we've seen fairly.

The feather was, well, a floppy bit of plastic on a pond which was starting to say more about litter than a "giant feather fallen upon the water, seeming to have been plucked from the air and destined to float with the wind".



Then last weekend, we drove all the way to Dent because we were incredibly attracted to the idea of Line of Site by Jenni Danson, but when we got there the traffic was depressing, the artwork what looked like miles away, and they wanted £££ for parking the car (Dentdale isn't the sort of place that lends itself to fly-parking). So, I think we saw it, but it could have easily been a bit of gas pipeline.



On the way to Coniston we'd tried to tune in to "Under the Waters" at Thirlmere. On the A591, all we could get was Radio 2 so decided to revisit on the way back north. So yes we did this, driving around the western side of the lake for the first time, which was nice. We promptly forgot about the radio, and walked by the lake instead, capturing a few nice dragonfly shots while there.



And last night, we decided to drive to Stainmoor to see Domestication by Chloe Burns & Hannah Stewart (I could say something here about middle-class pretentions, but I'll resist because I know it's just me being unfair) ... This one more than most sounded right up our street - "A homely glow, from abandoned huts along the railway, are people living there again?" - this had our imagination warking overtime and it would be fabulous with the sunset behind it, perhaps with the Stainmore rock art in the foreground - B had great plans for this in his head. When we got there, just after 7pm and after dusk, not a sign of it, and the directions / loaction description was crap. The A66 is fairly unforgiving to U-turns, so we headed home disappointed having wasted 2 hours and more diesel.

"Get Out There?" I think we did.

This year is the last for FRED - no funding or perhaps the director Steve Messam wants to spend more time with his family or doing something creative (his Drop is fab)

It's a shame that our experience of FRED has been low, I still believe in it and things like it, and regret that it won't perhaps be around in the future. I love outdoor art and to have it in my home county is great. But PLEASE make it easier to find and PLEASE don't make the homepage look so impressive and fabby - the photos made our expectations too high.

Autumn = Blog Update

Bless me father, it's been a while ...

Well the summer is over, and what have you done? Nowt much. Rain has been terrible, obviously, plus my feet are giving me jip hence preventing me from walking far if I wanna be able to walk at all the next day.

So a lot of my flickr shots have been taken from car parks and lay-bys and in gardens and not far from the car. I'm been semi-creative but somehow not been inspired - although visiting the Bead Fair at Rheged on Sunday was fabulous. I could have spent hundreds of quid ...

I've been reading other people's blogs - like me they sometimes have crises of confidence where they think no-one's reading it and are they wasting their time - well in my opinion they are sometimes the equivalent of the penpal letter to a stranger, only not always necessarily getting a reply. The doesn't make them any less interesting, and a sometimes so well-written they could happily be at home in a perfectly good book. Perhaps that's why I don't read books much (well OK that's not the only reason)

So what else has been going on -well some good friends of mine came oop norf from dahn sarf, the plan being to walk the Hadrian's Wall Path. Well that was the idea when the planning started, it soon became a portion of the interesting bit in the middle, but once they got here, Rain + Heavy Bags = Plan C. They are now experts in museums and the AD122 bus timetable. I think there must be some walkers out there that complete the wall in one go, but they must be pretty determined and also completely anal, let's face it. My friends took the better option of enjoying everything to hand when the opportunity arose, and found such a wonderful caravan they decided to stay there for the last 3 nights!

I visited them for a day and took them up to Kielder to see red squirrels, and lots of moss. They couldn't get enough of the moss, oh and the trees. That's two things we have plenty of up here ... and marshy bogs. They now know how the recognise the types of grass which like to grow in bogs (learned the hard way no doubt)

While at Kielder,we went to the Bird of Prey Centre at Leaplish. Now I've been to quite a few of these places now, and this was one of the best; they even had a vulture as part of the display team, and we were encouraged to pet a little Scops Owl called Tilly who just sat there like an adoring toy. She and her feathery mates were fantastic - well the pelicans were impressive but rather scary if I'm honest, and bloody huge!

For pics of the Kielder trip see here.

L8trs!

Sunday Breakfast Smile

Breakfast Smile
Originally uploaded by pebblesfromheaven

Toast, fried haggis slices, fried eggs, and tomato ketchup. Yum!